‘Do not shred files’: The tainted blood email that was never sent

AN EMAIL telling civil servants not to destroy documents relating to the contaminated blood scandal was never sent, a minister has admitted.

It was meant to go out on April 3 to all government departments telling them to ‘preserve’ all information that might be relevant to the ongoing contaminated blood inquiry.

But yesterday Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said it wasn’t actually sent because the group email recipient list didn’t work.

Mr Lidington apologised for the mistake and said that a second email had been sent out on June 11, this time successfully. He said the error had resulted in ‘no material damage’ and that officials were now trying to establish whether any government departments mistakenly deleted emails in the three months between April and June.

In a statement, Mr Lidington said the original email ‘did not reach its recipients, due to the failure of the collective IT address used’.

He added: ‘I can reassure the public that this has resulted in no actual harm, but it is an error for which I apologise to the Inquiry, and most importantly, to the people infected and affected.’

The contaminated blood scandal was the NHS’s worst treatment disaster and resulted in up to 5,000 patients being infected with diseases such as HIV in the 1970s and 1980s.

Many had the blood clotting disorder haemophilia which meant they required regular injections of Factor VIII – a product derived from human blood plasma which enabled their blood to clot.

But at the time Britain was low on supplies and imported additional stocks from the USA, which had been donated by the homeless, prisoners and drug addicts. Many had HIV and hepatitis C.

A public inquiry into the scandal got underway last month, and this is expected to hear how the Government knew the products were infected but continued giving them to patients.